


Consolation Prize

by atlatl_vertebra



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Breckenridge Jazz Hands (Blaseball Team), Brief Self-Harm, Chicago Firefighters (Blaseball Team), Dissociation, Gen, Hellmouth Sunbeams (Blaseball Team), M/M, Mexico City Wild Wings, Mexico City Wild Wings (Blaseball Team) - Freeform, Other, fear and self-loathing in Mexico City, sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlatl_vertebra/pseuds/atlatl_vertebra
Summary: Joshua Watson's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Post-Crabs Ascension Season of Blaseball
Relationships: Joshua Watson/Brock Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Consolation Prize

“Do you miss them?”

He’s ready for someone to ask him why he did so poorly during their first hosting of Tokyo. Their uniforms were so bright, so saturated, he couldn’t bear to look at them for long, obviously.

Nobody asks him about that.

At the end of the week, he steels himself, and asks if Burke has a telescope handy. He doesn’t tell Burke why he’s asking. (He’s relieved Burke doesn’t ask.) (He’s ashamed he’s relieved.) Burke lights up, apparently glad to have an outlet, and he forces himself to be glad to be that outlet. After thirty minutes of lead-up on _the celestial ballet_ , the old man finally opens up a case to reveal something that should be in a university museum, not the corner of some pitcher’s apartment. It’s as if someone snapped a wristwatch in half and reassembled it to tell the heavens instead of time. There’s a gold inscription inlaid – inlaid! – into the tube, and he can feel the tide rushing into his ears.

This was a _parting gift._

The apprehension he felt before might as well be a pebble compared to this boulder. He’s afraid to touch it, fearing that if he does it will shatter like a liquor bottle thrown onto the shore of Lake Michigan. But Burke’s still going on, and he has to follow, or risk– (He has to follow. Keep focused.) He watches Burke assemble and adjust and disassemble it as carefully as he can (he can’t hear him over the howling wind and crashing waves) and dutifully, mechanically performs the same actions under that watchful eye. Apparently satisfied, Burke lets him take the scope, case and all, mentioning something about how, even in the most inhospitable environs, with a new perspective you can find something that will still take your breath away.

(He doesn’t say that’s what he fears most.)

“Do you miss them?”

Their second series hosting Tokyo doesn’t go much better, and he’s running out of excuses. (Nobody’s yet to ask.) (He’s still running out.)

Playing on the former outskirts of Moab is always a trip, and he figures that’s what he needs, a change of pace. A shell-bleached change of pace. Out of the gate he cracks a bat clean in two, driving the ball up and away. (Let the Hellmouth have it; it deserves to take something from him.) He kicks up the desert sands running far faster than he needs to after such a done deal.

It’s a pace he can’t maintain.

Finding out future schedules isn’t hard in Mexico City – sometimes justice is best served by looking the other way – and he wishes it _was_ him getting linedrived into the Hellmouth instead.

Breckenridge.

Holden’s still there.

Holden’s _still there._

He could talk to Holden and– He has his first laugh in what felt like an age. He could **talk.** To **_Holden Stanton._**

What he does instead is end their series with a ground out to the little guy.

He doesn’t invite him over.

He doesn’t touch the telescope.

“Do you miss them?”

He’s been pointedly ignoring the skies for weeks now, but the Tigers haven’t. Hades has flexed the stars once, and does so again out of spite, it seems. Was this how the Shoe Thieves felt? (Was this how **everyone** felt, on the other side of their rise?)

He had to wonder what it was like. To have something worth taking.

He steals home instead, later, against the Tacos.

What a joke.

(He wonders if Val noticed.)

(He doesn’t invite Val over.)

“Do you miss them?”

Everyone’s parading through Mexico City, and he’s… fine. He’s not much use against the Firefighters (he wasn’t much use as a Firefighter). The dried lake bed provides the only connection to Holden as they swap ground-outs, and that’s fine too. Ancient shores are all anyone ever gets.

The sun2 smiles over the city, but not for them.

“Do you miss them?”

He expects going out to Boston to be, well, _something_. It _is_ something, but not what he expected. The tang of the Atlantic is invigorating, instead of… not that. The Garden is a delight, the games are tight. The tide whispers in and out, a lullaby. He takes it with him back to the shores of Lake Michigan, and the wind whistles in time, too. Even Houston’s silence and unfamiliar gulf is not a burden. Being shamed at these places is not a burden. (He is not a – )

“Do you miss them?”

He’s showing off in Chicago, now, sending it home away from home (back at home) (away from home). Smiling even when they don’t get that W. It’s close and it’s fun. The Dale show him a different way of having a fun time, too. Even with that void in the sky hanging low, it’s good. They don’t need to acknowledge it. Nobody needs to acknowledge it.

Landing in Breckenridge, he fully expects more of the same. Why would it be any different anymore? He heard a while back that Holden was doing, what, fortune telling? Maybe he could book a sesh between games. Maybe not even that. Maybe they could just meet up off the field, in the mountains. The _mountains_! Maybe he should call Nagomi too, and Moco and Sutton, and –

Maybe Larry Horne could’ve not hit a solo home run.

On the receiving end, there was always a tinge of wrongness to the sky taking something unearned. But to be on the side making that call.... He felt like someone reaching into his soul, gently prying open a clenched fist and taking the object within. That the fist no longer needed to be clenched was not a relief; bereft of purpose, there was no masking the ache anymore.

Empty-handed with nothing to show for the pain.

Only later did he note that Holden was the one who got him out at the top of the next game. It left him as soon as he finished reading it. Seeing that no one else on the whole team scored to close out the series, either, left him just as quickly.

“Do you miss them?”

Chicago brings the wind with them to Mexico, and it howls worse than a werewolf’s ghost. (Not that he would know. Not that he overheard conversations he shouldn’t, all those seasons ago. Not that anybody wants to talk to –) He walks. Cell brings him home but can’t make her own way in the gale. He repays his debts, sending Fran and Yong home next time. It’s not enough. It’s not enough. (He’s not – )

They lose.

The Firefighters turn the sun against them, and they lose _worse_.

They go to Utah, and he has half a mind to steal the sun from them. How dare they memorialize something so cruel as the stars? Instead, he gets caught stealing third. Wild Wings win, despite his _help_.

He wonders how close Adkins could fly him to the border. Would the Hellmouth take someone who’s already died? Or would he be unwelcome here, too?

As a compromise, he lets the earth take his mind, if not his soul. Plate tectonics are slower than a rip tide, but still drag everything down, eventually.

He plays in Breckenridge.

He doesn’t remember playing in Breckenridge.

“Do you miss them?”

The sea spray wakes him, mid-week, but there’s nothing invigorating about it. They “win” when the garden scrapes the sky, overgrown and grasping. They lose when no one in heaven hears their calls. (He calls to the sea. Only the tide answers, clear and cold. He’s not welcome here, anymore.)

He goes… home.

He makes sure Breckenridge catches his hands.

“Do you miss them?”

Tokyo is new, and disorienting, and playing angry isn’t enough. (He shouldn’t be angry. It’s not their fault. It’s not (not) his fault.) They party. (He hates them. (He feels ashamed for hating them.) He hates himself.)))

Miami comes to town.

They blacken the sky over El Ángel. 

There is no independence from heaven.

He brings those chains with him back to the desert. Making the playoffs is out of their reach, now. But the sun isn’t. The black hole isn’t. He falters, at first, as everyone else surges on past him. Summers and Fran go wild with abandon, and he sets them up. The meaningless points rack higher. The score sits at nine, and sits, and sits.

The Sunbeams start clawing their way back.

He waits.

He only gets a double.

He makes it to third on Ronan’s out. He eyes home – he could do it, he’s done it before. He can feel his blood pumping, crackling, electrons straining to be ripped from their moorings.

He waits.

The instant Cell makes contact, he bolts, body vibrating, ripping apart on a level he can’t see, on a level he shouldn’t be able to feel (he’s glad he can) (he’s glad it _hurts_ ); straining, straining to make it _home_ –

He touches the plate and immediately collapses as gravity changes. The earth has come to claim the rest of him, he thinks. (He shouldn’t have bartered with the Hellmouth last time, he wants to think, but doesn’t.)

Time seems to stop in the event horizon, long enough for him to remember that it was Burke who had told him what an event horizon _was_ , weeks ago; long enough for him to also realize that Burke was wrong about the nature of black holes, or at least this one in particular.

He wasn’t being stretched apart.

Hell, nothing was even being taken from him.

No, he was being… given something.

Time snaps back into place – a physical, tangible, violent _snap_ – and he finds himself stumbling on his feet, stepping off the far edge of home plate. He doesn’t remember what happened when time stopped, just that it did… maybe. Just that there’s something in him that wasn’t there before. Just that the score reset to zero because of it.

He wonders about Tot Fox for an instant, then promptly blacks out.

“Do you miss them?”

The next thing he remembers, he’s up to bat back in Breckenridge. Going through the motions helps him clear his head, enough that, screw it, he’s gonna steal third. He feels like he’s back from the dead (again) (no not again, this wasn’t death, this was something else) (this was the stars) (this was (not) Ascension) why not live a little, steal third.

He knows he’s awake because he does.

He knows he’s actually dreaming instead because Axel Cardenas hits a grand slam without hesitation.

He feels like he’s blacked out again – no, no, the sun2 equivalent of a black out. He is acutely aware of **everything** , so long as he doesn’t have to _think_ about it. He works the infield flawlessly, having memorized its contours trying to avoid Holden’s gaze all season. The Jazz Hands can hardly squeak in a _single_ the entire inning, and suddenly, he’s back up to bat again. He tightens his grip around the wood, not yet worn due to its newness, and it hits him like a lightning bolt.

 _Axel Cardenas_ hit a grand slam.

Axel Cardenas hit a **grand slam.**

 **Axel Cardenas** hit a **_grand slam._**

He laughs. He can’t stop laughing. He laughs as the first ball passes him. He laughs at his sudden out moments later. He’s laughing in the infield, the dugout. He laughs when he hits a triple – just for fun! He _can’t stop._

Until the game is called, and he stops as abruptly as he started, and… _something_ re-settles in his soul.

He spends the next two games pointedly not thinking about that.

The Beams come to Mexico City and he fully expects them to be out for blood. But the Beams are just Beams and he’s ashamed he’s disappointed in that. He’s ashamed they get shamed. He’s ashamed for feeling bad that the Wild Wings are doing well. He’s ashamed that he’s concerned that Brock is doing so well. (Why is that a worse party?) (Why are _any_ parties filling him with concern?)

(Why does he want the Beams to rip **_this_** out of him?)

Sun 2 smiles at that last thought, at the end of the series, but it’s still not enough. It’s not _right._

 _He_ has to set off the sun.

(He needs the sun to take **_this_** from him.)

The party heads to Miami – on a sunny day.

The anticipation gets him, initially, but he’s able to crack off a homer. He nervously watches everyone else: giddily getting on base, fumbling their ways home. It’s the most nerve-wracking party he’s ever borne witness to. (He blows off some of that nervous energy stealing third at the top of the third.)

Brock – Brock! – brings it up to nine in the fourth, just in time for his next at-bat. He keeps thinking about what will happen (what a relief it will be) that he swings at a foul ball. Shocked, he overcorrects, drives it the wrong way, gets out.

(Maybe someone else will be enough.) ( _They won’t; it has to be you, you idiot, what are you doing –_ )

Every at-bat fills him with a new apprehension, and every inning that goes by he’s more bewildered that nobody else has made it home. He gets a second chance at the top of the seventh, freezes up again, before letting loose on a… triple.

He doesn’t dare steal home.

It’s a white-knuckle wait as Ronan fails four coin-tosses in a row, but he finally connects in a way that works for him (but not for Ronan) (it’s fine he’ll understand) and he races home, smiling at the thought of that sun 2 smile, hitting the plate – and immediately realizing his mistake.

Black holes don’t take, nor do they give – they _condense._

And Sun 2 had **_un-condensed_** last time.

That dark pit he had unconsciously locked away burst open, all its seals undone; all its fists opened, aching from being locked in place so long, screaming to be locked back _in_ place, because at least then they served a _purpose._ He doesn’t trip over home this time, but wishes he did, so he could have an excuse. He forces himself to smile.

Sun 2 smiles back.

“Do you miss them?”

He doesn’t want to. (He does want to.) He didn’t want to think about it. (He was always thinking about it.)

He looks up the schedule for this last week (oh no, please, he needs more _games_ ), panics at the sight of the _Shoe Thieves_ coming to town (less games, different games, not games where he might see _him_ ), frantically flips through the rotation (it’s just one series, just three games, not a chance, good, good good _good_ ), beats himself up for doing so (what the hell is wrong with him that he _does_ ( ** _doesn’t_** ) want to see **_Tillman–_** )

He knuckles down harder than he did all season. (It’s not enough.)

He slips up against the Beams, tries to right the ship by hitting a home run at the top of the eighth, but it’s not enough. (He’s not enough.)

He slips less next game, gets a triple; Ronan send him home, but it’s still not enough. (He’s letting everyone down.)

He doesn’t even get on base for his final appearance at the Hellmouth. (It should be his _final_ appearance.)

They return to Mexico City and he feels like it’s the first time he’s ever step foot in the district. (He doesn’t belong here.) The Shoes Thieves don’t step much better (they were cursed; what’s his excuse?) losing all three games (they triggered a black hole the first game you _dumbass_ ).

They go scoreless against the Dale. (his fault his fault his fault – )

They rally and shame the Dale. (No thanks to him, he’s dead weight, he’s no use – )

They win because the Dale trigger the black hole in the last game of the season. (pointless, useless – )

They don’t pull a wildcard.

He doesn’t pull out the telescope.

He doesn’t pull out the telescope.

He doesn’t –

“Do you miss them?”

Josh looks up. Brock’s standing just outside the top of the apartment stairwell entrance. Josh immediately tries assuming a more languid position against the roof’s kneewall, like he had planned on relaxing on the floor here, thanks, but catches himself finding that thought _immensely stupid_ halfway into doing so, and stops in an even-more-awkward midway position. “Haven’t you gotten tired of asking me that every week?”

“If you weren’t trying so hard to out-Axel Axel, I’d consider it.” They tilt their head to smile, but even with a steady tone Josh knows it isn’t a happy one. And at the angle he’s lying at, it came off even more as a smirk, looking down at him, judging, their eyes catching the stairwell’s light, yeah, sure, that’d be the way to go, incinerated–

Josh sinks bank down to the floor, hands over his face, hissing out as deep of breaths as he could force himself to manage. Forcing himself to breathe, because he could, because he couldn’t, once; because he doesn’t need anyone to know he doesn’t _have_ to anymore (Brock knows) Brock doesn’t _need_ to worry about him– in, out, in, out, in.

He has a dim awareness that Brock settled in against the kneewall by his head, at some point. And that at some point he doesn’t need to keep taking such deep breaths. It’s some time longer before he finally uncovers his face, realize he’s staring _straight up at the night sky_ and hastily roll over. Longer still before _that_ panic subsides.

Brock doesn’t say anything.

Josh doesn’t _want_ to say anything (that’s a lie (it’s the truth)) but he knows Brock **won’t** say anything else until he does. That seawall has stood all season (longer), withstanding his tides from neap to king, and he’s… tired. “Oh,” he starts, “but, didn’t you hear?” Pause. “Axel’s hitting grand slams these days.” Nobody laughs. “We could all stand to be a little more like the guy.”

Brock reaches out to give him a soft pat on the shoulder and – he _recoils_ at the touch. The shock _at himself_ rolls him over, scrambles him up to his feet before he can even register any of it.

“Do you know-” and his voice is coming out fast, loud, ( _why –_ ) “- the _very first thing_ I **ever** said to him, back in that O’Hare terminal?”

Brock doesn’t budge, arm still outstretched, but does tilt their head to meet his gaze. Their face is unreadable. (He doesn’t think he could read anything right now.) (He doesn’t think.)

He slowly, mechanically folds hims arms over his chest, a facsimile of control and concern. “ʻI’m _**sorry.**_ ’”

“ʻI’m _**sorry.**_ ’” He barks out an unkind laugh, staccato and strangled. “ʻI’m _**sorry!**_ ’ Like that’s anywhere _near_ enough, for all- anywhere near _enough-_ for **_everything-_** ” and he suddenly spins, physically whips away the fragments of a thought, his arm muscles screaming from disuse. (Good. Somebody should be screaming.)

(It wouldn’t be enough.)

(He _was never_ enough.)

He turns on his heels, murderous, tunnel-vision, past Brock, to the telescope on the other side of them. It’s been set up for too long, pointed nowhere of note. He winds up his (old) (forgotten) (useless) pitching arm, fist clenched tighter than a neutron star, hurtles it down –

And gently daps Rodgers’s gilded farewell address.

He punches himself with the other fist.

Brock’s on him, then, hands on wrists, arms locking his shoulders, controlled and expertly executed pin. (He knows he could slip free, easy as sand between boardwalk slats.) (He knows Brock knows this too.) (He knows –)

He’s tired.

Joshua Watson is _so tired._

Josh doesn’t realize he’s gone limp in Brock’s embrace, that Brock’s pin is a gently rollicking hug, that he’s ruining their good vest with his face. Josh _does_ realize he’s answering a season’s worth of questions, in typical shitty Joshua Watson fashion.

_I miss them – I hate that I miss them – I hate that they sent me away – I hate that I wasn’t good enough to go back – I hate that they left without saying goodbye – I hate that they didn’t say goodbye the first time –_

In any other context, it might be romantic, tangled together on a rooftop as the sun2 rose, but Josh feels like a freshly broken bottle, bobbling in small eddies on the shore

(Someday those rough edges would be ground down.)

(Someday his origins would be unrecognizable.)

(Someday he’d be someone’s prized possession.)

Blearily, he raises a middle finger to the sky; he figures the direction doesn’t matter. “Fuck ‘em.”

Brock snorts. “Yeah, fuck ‘em.”

“I… am a hot mess.”

“You’re _my_ hot mess.”

Josh shifts, rolls his head to the side, makes sure he’s looking directly at Brock when he asks, “How long can I stay here?”

Brock leans in, kisses him, stays close. “As long as you’d like.”

Josh closes his eyes, leans back. He sighs. “Don’t make promises we can’t keep, babe.”

“Oh, well, if I recall correctly, _someone_ said we should all be a little more like Axel Cardenas.”

Josh laughs, _genuinely_ laughs, at that. It’s not for as long as he’d like, but... it _is_ enough. He’s enough. “Well. I think I can manage that.”


End file.
